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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jan 2015, 480 pages
Paperback:
Jan 2016, 496 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Kim Kovacs
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Timely and timeless, this is a dramatic and deeply moving novel about an act of violence in a small, Southern town and the repercussions that will forever change a young man's view of human cruelty and compassion.
After witnessing the death of his younger brother in a terrible home accident, 14-year-old Kevin and his grieving mother are sent for the summer to live with Kevin's grandfather. In this peeled-paint coal town deep in Appalachia, Kevin quickly falls in with a half-wild hollow kid named Buzzy Fink who schools him in the mysteries and magnificence of the woods. The events of this fateful summer will affect the entire town of Medgar, Kentucky.
Medgar is beset by a massive Mountaintop Removal operation that is blowing up the hills and back filling the hollows. Kevin's grandfather and others in town attempt to rally the citizens against the 'company' and its powerful owner to stop the plunder of their mountain heritage. When Buzzy witnesses the brutal murder of the opposition leader, a sequence is set in play which tests Buzzy and Kevin to their absolute limits in an epic struggle for survival in the Kentucky mountains.
Redemptive and emotionally resonant, The Secret Wisdom of the Earth is narrated by an adult Kevin looking back on the summer when he sloughed the coverings of a boy and took his first faltering steps as a man among a rich cast of characters and an ambitious effort to reclaim a once great community.
The Diamond State
The Appalachian Mountains rise a darker blue on the washed horizon if you're driving east from Indiana in the morning. The green hills of the piedmont brace the wooded peaks like sandbags against a rising tide. The first settlers were hunters, trappers, and then farmers when the game went west. In between the hills and mountains are long, narrow hollows where farmers and cattle scratch a living with equal frustration. And under them, from the Tug Fork to the Clinch Valley, a thick plate of the purest bitumi- nous coal on the Eastern Seaboard.
June was midway to my fifteenth birthday and I remember the miles between Redhill, Indiana, and Medgar, Kentucky, roll- ing past the station wagon window on an interminable canvas of cornfields and cow pastures, petty towns and irrelevant truck stops. I remember watching my mother from the backseat as she stared at the telephone poles flishing past us, the reflection of the white highway line in the window strobing her ...
Scotton's writing is exceptionally evocative — not only does he really help readers "see" the scenes he sets, he's got a superb ability to convey realistic dialog. Although I definitely enjoyed the novel, I did have a couple of issues with the plot. The author tackles a number of very large themes, some more successfully than others. Despite its flaws, I consider The Secret Wisdom of the Earth to be a little gem of a book, and have thought about it often, which is always a good sign. It's got so much going for it that I think most will be willing to overlook the novel's weaknesses and will find many reasons to appreciate it in the end...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).
John Grisham
[A] marvelous debut...The setting, in the coal country of Appalachia, is rich in history and lore and tragedy. A young teenager comes of age under the wise counsel of his grandfather. An ugly murder haunts a small town. The story has everything a big, thick novel should have, and I hated to put it down.According to the World Coal Association, the global annual haul for hard coal is over 6000 million tons, with the top five producers being China, the United States, India, Australia and South Africa.
Coal mining is usually broken up into two categories: Surface (also known as opencast) and underground. The latter currently accounts for a greater percentage of the world's coal production, but its popularity depends on the country; in the United States, for example, surface mining is the method more widely used.
The choice of method largely depends on the geology of the coal deposit. Surface mining, used when when the ore is near the surface, can recover nearly 90% of the coal in a deposit. In this method, the strata covering the ...
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